The date was March 6th, 2018, I was in the car with my mother and engaging in unremarkable conversation while listening to a combination of Marina and the Diamonds and Lana Del Rey – or as I like to call it, my identity crisis music. The conversation ran stale and I decided to ask a question I had been intensely pondering. 

“Mom, can I get my belly button pierced?” I asked, it is (and always has been) my style to ask big questions out of nowhere with no conversation leading up to it. 

“Absolutely not. That’s trashy and I do not want you doing that,” she told me. To her that was the end of the conversation, but to me, it was just the beginning. 

That night, she left the house, and my brothers and I were left to our own devices. They were busy playing video games and I was in my room. Intense boredom began to set in, and I was wondering just what I could do with my time. That’s when it occurred to me. 

I called my friend frantically and asked him to Google “how to pierce your own belly button” because I didn’t want my search history to pop up on my mother’s phone. He informed me that it would be incredibly stupid to pierce my own belly button, especially since I didn’t even really have a real piercing. So, of course, I told him that I would be fine and began to pierce my own belly button with a safety pin with one hand, and on the phone. Once I was done, I put in a sewing pin and went about my day. 

A week later my friend bought me an actual belly button piercing that I could use instead of a sewing pin (because I’m a professional). My mom still thinks it’s trashy, and she has assured me that she will always think that way. But it’s a part of me now, a part she needs to accept.